Banking iPhone app dumps cheques in the bin

Snap both sides and mail the funds in instead

This piece of news is ostensibly about the good old iPhone, but it really has a lot more to do with the evolving nature of personal banking than anything else.

American bank USAA says its new Deposit@Mobile iPhone cheque-processing app has been downloaded almost 150,000 times in just three days, enabling customers to avoid the hassle of remitting bits of paper by snail mail.

Military intelligence

Instead, they fire up the app, which holds their account details, photograph both sides of the cheque and hit the big red button to verify the deposit. After that, the funds are in the bank and the paper can be shredded.

USAA says it has plans for Android, Palm and Blackberry versions of the app, but unless you're in the US military, which the bank serves, it's only a pointer to the way ahead for the rest of us.